Vanishing Act
by Nonsuch
Summary: Sarah is missing. To Toby, it seems that no one but him cares - her room is out of bounds, her mother unmentionable, her kidnapper unknown. Toby decides to find her, only to learn that the circumstances surrounding her disappearance were far stranger than he could have ever imagined. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter One

**VANISHING ACT**

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**Chapter One**

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I'd like to tell you about my sister. She was taken from us a long time ago - I was a child - so I can only piece things together from what others have told me. There's that, and what I've seen for myself in visions and dreams.

As she vanished when I was three, Sarah – in my view, at least - became something of a mythic figure. She was an idol to be revered, but not a daughter or a sister in the functional sense. Mom and Dad made a few feeble attempts to explain what had happened to her, but were never able to articulate her fate beyond "she just disappeared."

I could easily spend hours looking at the framed picture of her on the mantle, as I enjoyed making up stories about her to fill the gap she'd left behind. In my imagination, Sarah was many and all things: a princess, a warrior, an intrepid explorer, a sorceress. She filled my dreams, assuming a different role every night. One time she'd be red-faced, hacking her way through the undergrowth in a jungle in Columbia; another she'd be dressed in gold and watching as a bland Prince Valiant clone slaughtered a vast, silver-scaled dragon to win her love. The settings of the dreams were often copied wholesale from TV shows or movies I'd seen; consequently, many of my nights involved Sarah snooping around haunted mansions and abandoned mine-shafts with Scooby Doo.

Sarah was very beautiful – far more so than anyone else in my family. At best, Dad was homely looking – he had rough, ruddy skin and his nose was far too large for his face. Mom was moderately pretty, but only in the blandest, most manufactured way. I hated her hugs because of the toxic scent of her hairspray. As for me, I'm something of a compromise. I'm just bland, the sort of person you glimpse in the street but never really pay attention to.

By contrast, Sarah is _exotic_. I have never been able to pin down why that is - exotic feels like a strange word to use for a girl with creamy skin. Perhaps it's her black hair, her green eyes. Whatever it's down to, her distinction was always clear – she didn't belong with us. When I was very small, that was all the explanation I needed for her absence; having such a striking person in the house would have been wrong. At one stage I convinced myself that I was being lied to, that Sarah wasn't related to us at all. She was the proverbial cuckoo in the nest, the twist being that she was the beautiful one. Now I think of it, the only earthly person she bore any resemblance to was her mother. Both were glamorous, dark haired and eminently mysterious.

I only discovered the identity of Sarah's mother by accident, after a particularly adventurous afternoon when I snuck into Sarah's room. It had been raining steadily since midnight so I was being kept inside – I only tried the door out of habit, never expecting it to open. When it glided open I darted through, only just remembering to close the door quietly. That will sound odd, so allow me to add some context – the door to Sarah's room had been kept locked as long as I could remember, its contents a mystery. It was off limits to everyone and the key was kept securely in my Dad's back pocket. He insisted that the room remain exactly as Sarah had left it.

"But why, dad?" This was a few months before I found the door open. I was asking why the door was locked, and dad's initial response had failed to satisfy me.

"We're keeping it safe for when she comes back."

I had the good sense not to ask 'why' again.

Sarah's room had all the pull of the forbidden, and thoughts of it fired my imagination. Occasionally, it figured in my dreams. One night I imagined that the room was decorated with spider's webs – mom never cleaned it so that kind of made sense. Another night, I dreamed that it was carpeted with feathers; I was never able to make sense of that.

The best word I can think of to describe Sarah's room is _uncanny_. In my early years everything connected with Sarah had a slight tinge of unreality; the only solid evidence testifying to the fact we'd spent time together was a few home movies and a series of photo albums dedicated to the two of us. My favorite photo showed us together in a park when I was about two – Sarah was beautiful and smiling, I was beaming and had ice-cream smeared around my mouth.

But that's all beside the point – the most important thing I need to get across is the fact that Sarah's room was deeply, irrevocably strange. It seemed to occupy a different plane of existence to the rest of the house: it looked different, felt different, smelled different. Though there were only a few faint traces of pink visible, it was undeniably a girly room – everything from the dolls and teddies soaking in dust on the shelves to the fancy, satin drapes hung over the bed marked it out as feminine. Even though I was alone, I pulled a face to signal my disgust.

After absorbing the strangeness of the place, I found myself at a loss for what to do. In the end I decided to try the draws and see what I could find. I was seven years old and becomingly an increasingly competent reader, so found the prospect of a secret diary or a scrawled notebook exciting. Sarah's books proved to be unobtainable, neatly stored on high shelves.

The draws in her prim white dresser were filled with junk – mangy tubes of lipstick, dried flowers that crumbled when I touched them and a few slim novels with curling pages. They smelled funny, so I rooted through them quickly before moving on to her wardrobe.

The wardrobe smelled even worse than the drawers, and I pinched my nose after opening the door. The clothes all smelled musty and old and rained dust over me the moment I ducked my head to look under them. Struggling not to cough and alert Mom to my presence, I patted the bottom of the wardrobe. The clothes themselves – jeans, baggy jumpers, and the odd floaty dress – had no appeal, but I knew from personal experience that wardrobes were liable to hide other, far more interesting things. I encountered an eclectic range of shoes and managed to nick my hand on a particularly sharp heel; I was on the verge of pulling out when I felt a stretch of stiff, rough paper beneath my fingers. I grabbed the edge of it and yanked, only to find that the object wouldn't budge. I seized it with both hands and pulled at it with all my might, but it was stuck fast. Though I squinted, I couldn't see where it had got caught – the back of the wardrobe was deep with shadows.

Intrigued, I took a chance and sneaked out to my room to grab my torch. When I returned and shone it into the wardrobe, I gasped and dropped the torch– there was a massive hole in the back of the wardrobe and beyond, seemingly reaching deep into the wall. The object I'd been pulling at was a huge, ratty scrapbook – it was wedged fast in the opening, trapped so intensely that there were deep marks in its side where it had been caught. Picking up the torch to shine it on the book I saw that it was plastered with clippings, stickers and drawings. Throughout, the same woman's name and face repeated again and again. The woman's face was something like a poor, generalized likeness of Sarah and that combined with her name – Linda Williams – made me realize that she had to be her mom. Though I'd come to understand that my mother wasn't Sarah's a long time before, the discovery of her actual mother made me shake with excitement.

I was so busy attempting to decipher the tight newsprint of the articles –'Williams Wows in Antigone!' - 'Bright Stars Spice up the Local Stage' – 'New Talent Shines in Broadway Debut' – that I didn't hear the sobbing straight away. When I first became aware of it I thought it was the wind swilling nosily around the cavity in the wall. I persisted, trying to make sense of the clippings only to find everything besides the headlines unintelligible– I stopped reading altogether when, with a single sob, the noise became unmistakably human. In between the sobs I could hear trembling, unsteady breaths. I found myself reminded of a girl called Candy in my class at school – she was the resident cry-baby and couldn't pass a day without bursting into tears and hyperventilating. When Candy cried I would walk away, annoyed, but these sobs were different. There was something intensely sad about them – they were so drenched in despair I couldn't help but feel sad as well.

"Hello?" I called out timidly, inching closer to the opening. "Is someone there?"

The sobbing paused. Then, I heard her speak, "Toby?" The voice was sharp and alert, cutting through the awful stillness that had set in.

I'd only heard Sarah's voice in old home movies, and she'd always sounded happy in those. Now she sounded panicked, frightened. I don't think I've ever heard anyone sound as scared as she did then.

My heard thudded at a tremendous rate, and though I was terribly afraid there was something electrifying about hearing her speak. I opened my mouth and was about to call back when I saw a pair of eyes gleaming at me from the dark gap in the wall. I kept dead still and stared straight back at them; as I watched, other eyes winked into view. Gradually, I started to withdraw from the wardrobe, never letting my gaze slide from the eyes. It was only when I heard a cruel, animal snigger that I pulled out entirely and fled, slamming Sarah's door behind me and barreling down the stairs to launch myself into my mother's lap.

I cried at length before speaking, burrowing my face in her skirt as she smoothed over my hair and asked me what was wrong. I could tell she was annoyed from how she held herself - stiffly, as if afraid for her posture - but she kept the irritation out of her voice.

"I was in Sarah's room," I gasped out eventually, "I found a book with her mom in it, and she spoke to me and there were monsters in her wardrobe!"

"Toby!" My mother exclaimed, pulling me up by my shoulders. What in the world are you talking about?"

I repeated my story, taking my time and expressing myself more carefully. By the end of my account, my sobs had softened to snivels.

"Look, you're upset. Why don't you sit down and watch TV? I'll fix you something to eat." And with that, Mom walked away. She returned after a few minutes to place a sandwich on the table in front of me. She looked surprised when she realized that I hadn't turned the TV on. "Don't mope around – why not watch some cartoons?" She grabbed the remote and switched the TV on for me. The volume was turned up to the max in record time.

I remained huddled on the sofa to a soundtrack of _Tom and Jerry_ cartoons until Dad came home. I stiffened when I heard the door open, listening intently to the fraught whispers he and Mom exchanged in the hall. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but didn't need to to know they were talking about me. I buried my head in the dip between my knees, hiding my face. I knew what I'd seen and all I wanted was for my parents to believe me, for them to go into Sarah's room and see the glowing eyes for themselves.

Dad didn't shout at me when he came over like I'd feared he would, but he didn't smile either. Instead, he said nothing, took my hand and led me towards the stairs. When I protested and tried to dart away, he stopped. "Toby, it was wrong of us not to let you in your sister's room. I can't blame you for being curious, for imagining things-"

"But I wasn't imagining things! I heard her – there were eyes staring out at me from the back of her wardrobe!"

"You know that's impossible, Toby."

"There was a scrapbook filled with pictures of Sarah's mom – Linda! The creatures were trying to take it – they were pulling it through the wall."

Dad had to take a long, deep breath before speaking. "You could well have seen a scrapbook – her mother's an actress, and Sarah collected clippings and news stories about her. But you really mustn't fib about monsters-"

"I'm telling the truth!" I insisted, "Go and look – you'll see!"

"We'll look together," Dad said kindly, tugging at my wrist.

"No!" I sobbed. "Please don't make me!"

Despite my protests, Dad managed to haul me up the stairs and through Sarah's door. I attached myself limpet-like to his side until he strode up to the wardrobe. I stayed back, cowering by her bed. Dad pushed the hangers of Sarah's clothes aside, launching a flurry of dust into the air. Once the dust had mingled fully with the air, he bent to peer at the back of the wardrobe.

Eventually, Dad reached back for my hand "Come on, take a look."

My stomach heavy with dread, I inched forward. Dad put his hand on my shoulder as I moved to his side. Though the scrapbook was gone, the dark, cavernous hole in the wardrobe remained. Besides the opening, everything was normal – there were no eyes gleaming in the shadows, only shoes and a few crumpled clothes that had slipped from their hangers. "But it's there!" I cried out, my eyes welled up with tears. "Can't you see it? There's a big hole right there! The creatures have gone and so has the scrapbook – they must have stolen it. I could hear Sarah crying, Dad – she called out to me."

Dad was quiet for a minute. When I looked up, he'd closed his eyes – he looked pained. When he opened them again, he released a long sigh and squatted so he was level with me. I didn't look at him, my eyes fixed on the gaping hole in the wardrobe. "Sometimes, when we miss someone very much we like to think they're still around – we hear their voice, maybe see them at a distance. You were very young when Sarah vanished, but you were very close to her all the same – it makes perfect sense that you'd come in here and imagine things. I don't blame you, but you've got to know this – whatever you heard, it wasn't Sarah." He reached into the wardrobe and tapped the wood; the sound made me flinch. "See? That's the back of the wardrobe – it's solid, just as it always has been."

I went to bed that night afraid and filled with questions. My bed was positioned against the wall that separated my room from Sarah's, so I dragged my comforter onto the floor and bedded down there. I couldn't sleep for the longest time, feverish from thinking. I didn't understand how Dad hadn't seen the hole in the wardrobe – it had been there as plain as day, a large opening surrounded by needles of broken wood. Then there was the question of the scrapbook. Even if I were to accept what Dad had said, that I'd imagined it all, there was no way to explain how I knew the name of a woman I hadn't known existed before.

Starting that night, my dreams of Sarah changed. Suddenly, they weren't so friendly anymore. Sarah stopped being bright and happy and smiling, instead she was locked in a dark hidden place, sobbing. The worst of it was that a part of me – the part that frightened me - knew that the dream wasn't a dream at all.

I had heard her voice; I had heard her crying. I knew one thing for certain – if I hadn't heard the real, living Sarah, I had heard her ghost.

The dream stuck with me until I went to college. Things changed then, for it was while I was studying in Chicago that I saw Linda Williams for the first time in the flesh.

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_**Author's Note**_

_This was written for the 2013 labyrinth_ex fic exchange - the recipient was **themsmine**. I had fun writing this fic and hope you enjoy it - please R&R. The more reviews that come in, the faster I'll get new chapters up! This version has been revised since it was submitted to the exchange._

_Many thanks to the ever reliable **Nienna Telrunya** for the beta._


	2. Chapter Two

**VANISHING ACT**

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**Chapter Two**

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I chose to go to college in Chicago for a simple reason – it was hundreds of miles away from my family. By the time I was eighteen, my relationship with my parents had frayed to the point that I only exchanged words with them out of necessity. That may seem cruel on my part, but it certainly had a basis; I hadn't forgiven their failure to believe what I told them when I was seven. As far as I was concerned, they were responsible for my nightmares.

To illustrate the extent to which our relationship had soured, I'll tell how my parents came to learn I was going to Chicago. I actually neglected to say I'd got a college place for weeks, only announcing that I had one when my mother – in her snippiest voice - ventured to ask me what I planned on doing upon my graduation. Her tone strongly implied an expectation that I would either remain silent or mumble "nothing." I felt supremely satisfied when I said I was going to Northwestern to study medicine, and relished my mother's expression of slack-jawed shock. To be fair to her, the response wasn't all that surprising; I was quiet, unassuming and never spoke about school. I guess my years of silence had led her to think I was stupid.

Dad responded to the news by freezing – his face literally lost what little expression it had, and he stared across the dinner table as if he was focusing on something far away. I didn't probe him for a more elaborate reaction; I'd given up on provoking him years before.

I took as few non-essential items with me as I could afford, the goal being to cut myself off from home to the greatest possible extent. Nonetheless, one of the most uncomfortable moments in the lead up to my departure came when I asked Dad for a photo of Sarah to take with me. I hadn't been able to bring myself to look at the albums of her since the nightmares started; her face had become a beacon of unbearable sadness. I wanted a photo as I was determined that would change once I went to Chicago – I wanted to remember how I'd loved her as a child. More than that, I wanted to remind myself who it was I sought to rescue. I had no idea who or what Sarah needed saving from, only that I wanted nothing more than to bring her home.

I knew Dad looked through the photo albums of her every Sunday – it had become something of a ritual for him since he'd taken early retirement the previous year. I never approached him in those moments - I, much like my mother, feared depression was contagious. I went up to him to ask about a photo one evening while he was watching TV, and came out with it quickly, "Can I have a photo of Sarah to take with me to college?"

Dad continued to look straight at the TV, but his eyes began to glisten from the erratic, flashing lights thrown off by the screen. I cringed inwardly, disquieted by his expression. "That should be fine. Bring the albums down – I'd like to see which one you take."

I ran upstairs and drew the box of albums out from the store cupboard. I only took one downstairs with me; I knew exactly what photo I wanted.

I sat down beside Dad on the sofa, opening the album on my lap. Seeing photo after photo of her face made my heart ache. It was hard not to cry, but I managed it. "I want this one," I pointed to the photo of Sarah and me together in the park.

Dad turned his face away from the TV screen, smiling faintly as he looked at the album. "I remember when that was taken. Your mother charged in straight after it was taken to wipe the ice cream off your face - you howled like mad."

"I can't remember," I muttered petulantly, "I can't remember anything about Sarah at all."

Dad sighed in the way he always did when preparing to contradict me. "You're not going to. It's like we've always told you – you guys had a fantastic relationship. Sarah adored you and you adored Sarah. You shouldn't beat yourself up just because you can't remember her – you were only three, for heaven's sake."

I slipped the photo from its plastic casing, "I know, but that doesn't make me feel any better."

With that, I got up and walked away with the photo in my pocket. Dad made no attempt to follow me.

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Chicago couldn't have been more different from where I grew up. When I first went out in the city at night, I felt lost amidst its chaos. After 7:00pm, the city became a place of disorientating contrasts. The dark sky was lit by clutches of neon lights, silent alleys led off from bustling precincts, and most people looked lonely despite the crowds surrounding them. Over time, it was precisely these contradictions that came to fascinate me – they were what persuaded me to settle here for good.

I enjoyed my lectures, but never truly engaged with student life. My roommate, whose name I never truly learned, quickly realized not to approach me, and gave up his attempts to drag me out to socialize after the first week. I spent much of my time out of lectures alone, exploring the city. I kept the photo of Sarah and I folded severely in my wallet, the heavy crease cutting through my plump, toddler face.

While my earliest experiences of Chicago left me feeling daunted by the extent of my own insignificance, I soon became accustomed to it. I found I quite liked feeling small, and being able to lose myself in the maze of streets and shops. I had worked summer jobs since I was sixteen and was being funded through college by my grandparents, so could afford a curiously un-student-like lifestyle. I tended to eat alongside harassed-looking businessmen in a noodle place near the harbour, finding it infinitely preferable to the college canteen. I walked back from there to my accommodation every night. By my junior year, I could have navigated the route with my eyes closed.

On the way back, I always glanced at the billboards set on the frontage of the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. The building was formed entirely from glass and the billboards were always gaudily lit, like advertisements for some tacky casino. I noted each new production with mild interest: _The Winter's Tale, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice_. The plays had short runs and featured feted Shakespearean actors I'd never heard of. The only poster to ever make me stop dead in my tracks announced the upcoming production of _Anthony and Cleopatra_.

The poster was entirely dominated by a face. It captured my notice right away, for it was not just any face; it was my sister's. She was looking heavenward, her dark hair was braided, and there was a golden crown set atop her head. Her eyes shone with tears. I rushed towards it, disbelieving until the billing came into focus:

**LINDA WILLIAMS**

When I saw her name in bold print before me, I realized the truth: I was looking not looking at Sarah's face; I was looking at the face of her mother.

For a moment, I marveled at the odds – the fact that she'd somehow wound up in Chicago seemed just too strange, too unlikely. I quickly dismissed the thought, entered the theater, and booked a front row seat.

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I never got Shakespeare prior to Chicago; indeed, I had considered him something of a hack since being assigned _Richard III_ at high school. Despite studying the play in tedious detail I hadn't understood it– I just couldn't grasp how anyone could invest in characters who spent all their time standing around speechifying.

After I watched Linda Williams in_ Anthony and Cleopatra_, my feelings changed. Longing was wrought in her face when she rhapsodized about her lover. A carefully cultivated sneer was present when she mocked an official. Deep despair cracked her voice in the approach to Cleopatra's suicide.

While caught up in the darkness of the theater, I forgot that Linda Williams had to be in her fifties – she exuded the glamour and the beauty of a much younger woman. Her every movement was imbued with grace and power – when she was on stage, it was impossible to pay attention to anyone else. Her golden dress shimmered continuously, lit by an elaborate series of overhead lights. She was captivating; watching her perform made me appreciate why Sarah had kept a scrapbook dedicated to her achievements. The illusion of her power was only broken during the intermission, when I realized that the theatre was half-empty and that I was the youngest person in the audience by about thirty years.

I decided to approach Linda while the curtains were down, and subsequently spent the second half of the play mulling over my plan. I told myself to be honest, that no lie would grab her attention more effectively than the truth. I fully intended to shock her by announcing my presence – while my parents had dismissed what I'd told them when I was seven, I had a raw, instinctive feeling Linda would be more receptive. I reasoned that she'd be hungry for all the information about Sarah she could get, that she'd beg me for every detail. What mother wouldn't crave information about her lost child?

My parents' final words on Sarah's fate – "she just disappeared" - had not altered since I was in kindergarten. I knew there had to be more to know, and saw Linda –and this sounds naïve, I know - as a conduit to the truth.

I left the theater as soon as the curtain went up, missing the first bow. I knew I had to be assertive if I was to catch Linda before she left, so approached the usher propping open the doors at the top of the stairs.

"Excuse me, I was wondering if you could get a message to Linda Williams for me?"

The man started, and turned his head back to look at me as he rose from his crouch. "I'm afraid I can't do that, sir. If you're after an autograph, your best bet is to wait by the stage door around the back." The usher returned his attentions to the door, but I persisted.

"You don't understand – I'm the brother of her daughter. I'm Toby Williams. She'll want to see me."

The usher turned around again, looking impatient. "Linda Williams doesn't have a son – her daughter is missing and has been for nearly twenty years. If you don't go, I'll have to ask you to leave."

"I'm not her son. Her husband – the father of her daughter – married again, and had me. I'm Sarah William's half-brother. Please, just let her know I'm here – that's all I ask."

The usher looked conflicted, but said nothing. I reached quickly for my wallet and pulled out the photo of Sarah, unfolding it quickly. "Look, show her this. That's me and my sister. When she sees that, she'll know I am who I say I am."

He looked up from the photo, clearly aggravated though he made no attempt to pass the photo back to me. "Alright. I'll say you're here, but I'm not making any promises." The usher bent to check that the door was solidly propped open, then disappeared down the stairs and out of sight.

The wait at the top of the stairs felt long. People started pouring out of the auditorium a few minutes after the usher left, generally jabbering about where they'd parked or what they were going to have for dinner. I managed to disregard most of the irrelevancies, focusing in solely on the mentions of Linda -

'Still beautiful.'

'One of her better performances, I think'

'It's been a long time since she was last here, hasn't it?'

After a while the crowd began to thin out, until the only people exiting the theater were feeble and reliant on walking sticks. I peered over the ornate railing that ran alongside the stairs, looking over the lobby. Beside a few stragglers and a bored looking girl stationed at the refreshments counter, it was empty. I was about to approach the girl and ask where the usher was when he appeared at the foot of the steps. My attention was instantly drawn to his hand – the photo had gone.

"I've spoken to Ms. Williams, sir – she said she can't see you, but asked that you leave a number so she can call you."

I was quiet for a few moments, my eyes still focused on his hand. "Where's my photo?"

"She kept it – you said to give it to her."

"Not to keep! Not when she won't even see me!"

"Will you please quiet down," he whispered sharply, casting an anxious look over the room; though there were only a handful of people left, all of them were staring. "Don't get angry, okay? If you do, there's no way I'm giving her your number."

I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath; I couldn't let myself cry. "Alright – but I want that photo back. Please, say that to her. It's the only picture of my sister I've got."

A flicker of guilt crossed his face, and when he spoke he spoke softly. "I will. Now write your number down and I'll take it to her. She seemed shocked, but I think she meant it when she said she was going to call you."

I nodded. Thanking the usher, I wrote down my name and left. I walked home in a daze; in turned out that my chat with the usher had been more exhilarating than the performance.

From that day on, I pretty much kept my hand continuously tensed to reach for my cell in case it rang. I never normally got calls – the only person who had my number was Mom and she rang me at 6.00pm sharp every Sunday - so knew that if it rang at any other time it was practically guaranteed to be Linda. For the first week after seeing her at the theater, I heard nothing. I grew tenser for every day of silence, checking my phone compulsively. When it did go off, it interrupted Professor Jameson's talk on genetics. With the glares of every person in the lecture hall trained on my back, I reached for the phone and sprinted to the exit.

I said nothing when I first accepted the call, waiting for Linda to speak. "Is that Toby?" I didn't recognize her voice straight away for it was nothing like how it had sounded in the theater. She sounded lethargic, as if she'd just rolled out of bed.

"Yes," I answered timidly. Though she didn't sound anything like how she had on the stage, I couldn't shake my mental image of her as a chalk-faced Cleopatra.

"It's Linda. I'm sorry I couldn't see you before – I like to get away quickly after shows."

"That's fine," I paused to take a breath. "Do you still have the photo I gave to you?"

"Yes. You were a cute kid – impressive given who your father is." I think she attempted a laugh, but it came out as a phlegm-choked cough.

I waited until she stopped coughing before speaking. "Is there any way we could meet? I need to talk to you about Sarah."

It was Linda's turn to go quiet. The faint strain present in her breathing reminded me of my Aunt Maud – I was later to discover they both had a heavy cigarette habit in common. "I'm in a play with a four week run – what do you think? Actually, I'm about to leave for the matinee now."

"But you have an understudy, right? You've got a nasty cough –you could say you're ill."

"No chance. I have no intention of spoiling my reputation. Do you have any idea how old I am? My agent isn't getting enough calls as it is without me skipping a show."

"But I have to see you. My parents never talk about Sarah and I need to find out more about what happened to her. Right now, nothing makes sense."

"Then maybe you should ask them more questions."

"That's impossible – we hardly talk any more. Even if we did, they wouldn't say anything. They never have. If you help me, I might be able to help you."

"And how exactly would that work?"

"I have some information you might not be aware of. Information about her disappearance." I was thinking of my visions, but chose not to clarify. "I need your help in pulling together the bigger picture." I was stood in the hall outside the lecture theater, my desperation evident in the swell of my voice. A group of passing freshmen craned their heads back to gawp at me after walking by, and I looked away from them sharply before appealing to Linda again. "Please. You have to help me."

Upon reflection, I think any sane person would have terminated the call then. I was speaking like a madman, my voice a feverish whisper. But Linda stayed on the line. She was quiet, considering what I had said. Though I had no basis for thinking it, I imagined that she was smiling. "Okay then. How about Christmas? The show wraps up on December fifth and I'm free for most of December. Come and stay with me – we can catch up on a few dozen years."

I thought Linda was kidding at first, only for her to launch into a frenzy of planning. She relayed her address to me and I scribbled it down in the margin of my lecture notebook, making a note of the date she wanted me to arrive ("turn up on the twelfth. I've got obligations before then.") She issued instructions in a breathless rush, as if arranging an impulsive meet-up with a friend rather than a stranger. Her tone changed quite suddenly just after she told me to turn up after it went dark – to be specific, her voice went flat. "There's one last thing."

"What?"

"Don't come to the theater again. You'll distract me – I can't afford to be distracted."

I tried to say goodbye, only to find the line had gone dead. I didn't speak to Linda again until I turned up at her flat with a backpack on a dark, chilly evening in December.

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_**Author's Note**_

_Many thanks for all of your reviews, favourites and follows - it's really great to have such an enthusiastic response and hearing from you all encouraged me to get this chapter ready faster! I'd love to read your thoughts on this chapter._

_Many thanks to the ever reliable **Nienna Telrunya** for the beta._


	3. Chapter Three

**VANISHING ACT**

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**Chapter Three**

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I called my mother to say I wasn't going to be going home until just before Christmas, triggering a simple but precise, "Why not?" One of my mother's greatest character flaws was her inconsistency – though indifferent to me at home, she demonstrated an exacting interest in my life when I was away.

It took me a few moments to come up with a lie. In the end, I chose the most plausible answer I could think up, "Well, I've got a girlfriend. She's from around here and invited me to go and stay with her so I can meet up her parents."

I quickly learned to regret my choice of story; I ended up spending half an hour discussing an imaginary girlfriend. I named her Tracy and reeled off a list of attributes as they came to me – she had red hair, loved horses and lived in some no-name town in Illinois.

I only managed to get Mom off the phone by promising to send her a letter and a photo. As soon as the call ended I started worrying about where I was going to find a girl willing to pose for one.

I shifted the thought and spent much of the drive to Linda's place thinking about Tracy; I found it surprisingly easy to imagine her. She was obsessed with _Buffy_, wore glasses with a thick plastic frame and was proficient at scrabble. By the time I entered the small, lakeside suburb Linda had directed me to, I pretty much had a fictitious biography for Tracy plotted out in my head. I'd never given much thought to girls before; the only one to have occupied my thoughts for any length of time was my sister. And though she had lived, she was pretty much fictitious too – a fabricated girl my imagination had assembled from photos, home videos and nightmares. It was only during the drive that I realized how sad that was.

Linda's choice of home surprised me with how normal it was. It actually bore an uncanny resemblance to my parents' house, being set within a neat bank of large, white-fronted Victorian houses. It was dark, so I drove slowly and squinted at the house numbers from the road. Upon catching sight of the number Linda had told me over the phone, I pulled up, shut off the engine and left the car.

I felt calm as I approached the house, reassured by its familiarity. The door was even painted the same shade of olive green as the one at home, which I found faintly disquieting. It was clear that Dad and Linda weren't exactly on good terms – until I'd discovered the scrapbook, he'd not as much as admitted her existence. Though I had inferred her existence since I was about five, Sarah's mother was effectively a blank. In light of that, the likelihood of Dad and Linda exchanging decorating tips seemed highly unlikely. I was even more baffled as to why Linda would want to emulate the look of my parents' house in the first place, given that she seemed to hate them. I managed to shrug the thought and gave the door a sharp knock.

The response was instant "Just a minute!" The shout was followed up by a muffled "shit" and I heard a dull thud, as if something had been knocked onto the ground.

When Linda got to the door, she looked a mess. Her hair was heavily crimped from when it had been plaited for her turn as Cleopatra. Though she'd told me she was going to be busy until the twelfth, her schedule evidently hadn't involved a trip to the hairdresser. Her skin was a white, powdery haze - it was easy to make out the lines crowed around her eyes and lips. Presumably much of the glamour she'd projected on-stage had been the product of high-wattage lights. "I presume you're Toby. You've grown a great deal." She glanced at her watch. "You're dead punctual - I'm impressed. How old are you again?"

When I said I was eighteen, she whistled with an irritating air of amusement. "In that case, you've got to be the most punctual teenager in the world. To be honest, I didn't count on you being on time. Your sister never was."

I was drawn inside quickly, with Linda shutting the door hastily behind me. "This is a respectable neighbourhood," she spoke with a smile in her voice, "The last thing I need is my neighbors seeing some teenage kid on my doorstep – not with their sordid imaginations."

Inside, things couldn't have been more different from how they were at home. A curling mahogany staircase linked the lower and upper floors and the carpet in the entrance hall was inches thick. I was instructed to remove my shoes and leave them by the door. "You can't appreciate this house with your shoes on, honey." There was a suffocating air of decadence to the place. The air was laced with old cigarette smoke and some awful, pungent perfume. Illumination came from candles and dipped overhead lights. The dim lighting worked wonders for Linda's face; while the street lamp had deepened every line, the candles inside the house projected dim shadows that smoothed over her imperfections.

I was shown into a sleekly outfitted lounge which was distinguished by its abundance of mirrors. The walls were decorated with every imaginable type of looking glass: concave, square, full length, miniature. The strangeness of the room was enhanced by the sheer number of candles that filled the place – clusters of them were on every surface, all lit. When I asked about the mirrors, Linda laughed – less throatily than she had on the phone, I noted. "I'm dangerously close to sixty. When you're as old as I am it's important to keep your face under rigorous surveillance."

Once I'd settled in a large, leather-upholstered chair in a corner of the room, Linda moved to a wine cabinet and called over to me, "What would you like to drink?"

"I'll just have water, thanks."

"You_ are_ strange, aren't you?"

I said nothing, sitting back and waiting for my water.

When Linda returned from the kitchen, she had a flute of wine in one hand and a brandy glass filled with water in the other. She passed the glass to me silently and took a seat opposite mine. It was largely hidden in shadow. I studied her then, noting that her eyes were blue rather than green like Sarah's. Her appearance altered with every flicker of the candles; in certain moments her wrinkles and tight skin were overcome, and it was possible to see just how beautiful she had once been. It made me recall how she'd looked in the theater – resplendent in her golden dress and dramatic make-up.

She managed to break the memory by reaching for a cigarette case on the table beside her, lighting up quickly and dragging in a staggered breath. She tilted back her head and exhaled, closing her eyes in pleasure. She spoke without opening them. "How did you find me? Robert knew I was Chicago, but that's it - he only knew where I was performing when Sarah was around. She insisted on telling him, though I doubt he wanted to know."

"Dad didn't say anything. I was walking past the theatre and saw your name on the poster."

Linda snorted. "That's quite the fluke. No, don't look at me like that – I'm being serious. I'm a strong believer in chance."

"You must need to be, as an actor I mean."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's not reliable is it? You finish one job and often don't know where you're going to end up next. It's down to luck."

"Oh sweetie, that hasn't been true of me for twenty-five years. I built up a steady enough career on Broadway to keep my reputation going. The fuel's not as abundant as it once was, sure, but it will last me a little while longer." She took another drag of her cigarette. "I hope it will see me through until I'm sixty at least, but I guess I'll have to wait and see."

"Sarah wanted to be an actress, didn't she?" It had never been mentioned, but Sarah's desire to act was obvious from the photo albums – there were pages dedicated to shots of her dressed in faux-velvet and hokey space-suits for her high-school theater productions.

Linda regarded me carefully, her gaze bordering on a glare. Smoke twisted up from her cigarette; I had to fight an urge to cough. "At one stage, yes. She went off that idea when she about fifteen. She never said what she wanted to do instead. I don't think she decided. How old were you when Sarah vanished? I'm not very good with time."

It took me a while to form a steady answer, "I was three - that's why I came to you for help. I can't remember much of what happened."

"Really? Then what do you have to offer me?"

I lowered my head slightly so I didn't have to look her directly in the eyes. "I found something in her room. It doesn't make much sense to me on its own – that's why I want to find out the full story."

"There's not much to say. She vanished from her room at her father's house. She got home from school, went up to her room and was never seen again." I was stunned by how cold she sounded; Linda talked as if Sarah's disappearance meant nothing to her.

"So she was in the house when she disappeared?"

"Yes – the police said it was baffling. Your father thought I had something to do with it – he conveniently forgot the fact I was nearly a thousand miles away when she vanished."

"But why would he think that?"

"Two reasons. The first is that he actively despises me – he has ever since I served him his divorce papers through the mail. The second reason is that she'd stayed with me the previous weekend - it was her seventeenth birthday. We had a nice little tradition going - she would come and stay with me for her birthday weekend. She loved coming here. She had her own room – the guest room really, but she thought of it as hers - and Jeremy and I gave her whatever she asked for."

"Who's Jeremy?"

She stiffened visibly, looking pale despite the candlelight. "You really don't know who he is? I'd have expected Robert to tell you that much. He was my fiancé. We were meant to be getting married."

"What happened?"

"He left when Sarah did. I don't know why or how, but he vanished along with her."

I frowned. "But you said she vanished from her room."

"That's the truth. I don't mean they were both together when they disappeared. Sarah was in Westwood, Jeremy in Chicago. Sarah vanished from her room; Jeremy disappeared after leaving to go grocery shopping. He only took his wallet. Everything else – his passport, clothes, birth certificate – was left behind. The police questioned me, of course; they wanted to know what his relationship with Sarah was like. If he'd shown her special treatment."

As I stared at her, I realized Linda had started to cry - her eyes were wet and it showed clearly. I hadn't noticed earlier because it didn't affect her voice at all – she spoke steadily.

"Since you're clearly going to ask, I'll tell you what I told them – Jeremy was good with Sarah. He took an interest in her – listened when she rattled on about her fairy stories, laughed at her stupid jokes, bought her presents on her birthday. He did everything right. "

Linda proceeded to segue into a general talk on Jeremy, her voice remaining utterly controlled throughout. He was an actor like her, talented and handsome. He was from England but had moved to New York as a young man, flitting between any numbers of dialects – Queen's English, a Brooklyn drawl – as required. He charmed every casting director he met into giving him a part, dedicating himself to every role he won. According to Linda, he had played every male character worth playing– Iago, Stanley Kowalski, Torvald Helmer. Though I hadn't heard of most of the parts, I nodded out of politeness.

Linda always returned to her main point – the fact he was a good man. "Don't you agree?" She pressed me for a response during a lull after re-affirming his merits. Disconcertingly, she craned her neck forward as she waited for me to answer.

"He sounds nice," I muttered, shrinking back into my chair.

"He was. He was the best man I've known," Linda continued, her eyes glazed over. "He would never have hurt her, never. I remember on one visit – she was about fourteen – she started telling us about some story she loved where a princess was given three magical dresses – one blue like the sky, one silver like the moon, and another golden like the sun. Do you know what he did? He remembered that, and brought her a dress for each of her birthdays – they were just beautiful. Come on, I'll show them to you."

The languorous tone of the evening was dismissed with as Linda left her chair and marched up the stairs. I was shown into a guest bedroom, which had clearly been prepared with me in mind – the bed was turned back and the window was open. "This is where Sarah used to stay. If you still want to sleep the night, this is where you'll be." She moved across the room to a large, exquisitely carved wardrobe and drew a tiny key from her pocket. "I ask my guests not to use this wardrobe. Since I don't trust them, I keep it locked." She inserted the key into a lock, and drew back the doors to reveal an array of dresses. She sifted through them one by one until she stopped at a particular gown, pulling it out by the hanger. "This is it – the dress of the sky."

She held the gown up against herself and smiled. Somehow her smile made everything _slip_ – that's the only word that encapsulates the sensation. It was as if reality itself were tumbling away from me. I doubled over and clutched my stomach, feeling nauseous. When I looked up everything was blurred and she was changing – her blue eyes clouding, her sharp face softening, her brittle hair extending until it flowed in thick waves over her shoulders. She twirled and laughed, and when she stopped I realized Sarah was before me. She clutched the dress close to her chest, just as her mother had. She was younger than the Sarah I was used to seeing in photos. She had a narrow gap in her teeth and her cheeks were round and rosy.

"It's so beautiful," she gasped, voice pitched high with emotion, "It's just how I dreamed it would be. Thank-you!" And with that, she threw her arms around my neck and buried her face in my shoulder. It was Sarah – every fibre of me told me it was Sarah so I hugged her back and sobbed into the loose sleeve of her dress.

"I can't believe it's you," I murmured. "I don't know what's happening, but I'm so happy you're here."

"What are you talking about?" And with Linda's voice, the spell broke. She pushed me away, and the dress slipped to the floor between us. "What the hell did you think you were doing?" Her voice couldn't have been more different from Sarah's – jagged and harsh.

My mind was hazy but I knew that some part of what had happened was real for tears still stung my eyes. Linda looked aghast. "I'm sorry, but I saw her. I saw Sarah standing right where you are. She hugged me."

"All that happened is that you staggered about and tried to put your arms around me. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I've had visions – I heard Sarah calling out to me when I was a child. There's this hole in her wardrobe at home and when I got right up close to it I could hear her crying. I've had so many nightmares I've lost count– Sarah's in every one and she's always crying. I can't bear it. "

Linda said nothing. I was desperate for her to speak; I almost wanted her to be outraged, just to know I'd provoked some kind of response. But she instead regarded me coldly, as if none of my words had mattered. "So that was the information you wanted to share with me. It's late, so you can stay here tonight - but that's it. I want you gone in the morning."

"But what about what I've seen? Don't you care?"

"No, I really don't. The truth is that Sarah is probably dead. We don't know how she got out of her room without being seen, but it wouldn't have taken magic. She probably snuck out, went into the town when it was late, and got taken. She was young and pretty and her head was so full of nonsense she won't have had the good sense to keep herself safe. I'm her mother. It hurts me to so those things. But you know what? Hearing you spout this crap about hallucinations and magical wardrobes hurts more. I thought you might have had something meaningful to say but it looks like I was wrong. You're just a sad, confused little boy. I pity you, but that's it – I have no magical truths to reveal. All we will ever have of Sarah now is the knowledge that she's gone."

She left. I stood perfectly still and watched her go. I surprised myself by not crying. Instead, I was quite methodical. I went down to the hall to retrieve my backpack and bring it back upstairs. Though I felt numb for the most part, I could tell I was awfully tired.

I changed into my pajamas and went to retrieve Sarah's dress from the floor. It was made of pale blue silk and was white in places as if depicting a serene, cloud-dappled sky. Nothing happened when I touched it. I returned it to its hanger and put it back in the wardrobe. I searched for the other dresses Linda had described – the dress of stars and the dress of the sun. I found the dress of stars immediately - it glittered despite the limited light. I pulled it out. The dress was more beautiful than the other one, formed of black silk and covered with a spangling net of stars. When I looked carefully, I realized the sequins had been arranged to form constellations: Sirius, Cassiopeia, Orion. I felt dizzy as I held it but saw nothing – reality didn't slip as it had before. I returned it to the wardrobe quickly and looked for the final dress only to find it wasn't there. I found that odd, but went to bed regardless.

I slept well. In fact, that night at Linda's house was the first night in years that I hadn't had a nightmare. There was nothing to replace it though, no dream. Upon waking I felt oddly bereft.

The next morning, there was only one question I had to restrain myself from asking - I wanted to know what had happened to the golden dress. In the end, I silently ate the breakfast she provided and took back the photo I'd had passed to her at the theater. I felt nothing upon taking it back. The memory of Sarah's embrace felt far more real to me than the photo did.

When I was being shown out, I paused on the door-step to ask her one final question.

"The police thought Jeremy had something to do with Sarah's disappearance, didn't they?" I didn't fear asking the question; I knew that I would probably never see her again.

She glared, her nostrils tightening. "I have nothing more to say to you." With that, she shut the door in my face.

When I turned up at home that night, my parents were getting ready for bed – in fact, my mother answered the door in her nightgown. Once she'd got past my unexpected arrival, she asked "What happened?"

"Things didn't work out with Tracy – we just fizzled out." With that, I slunk off to my room before I could be subjected to more questions.

Sarah disappeared from my dreams completely after my night at Linda's house. Though I knew I should have felt glad that my nights were free of my sister's weird, spectral sobs, I only felt their absence. The sense of loss dulled over time but never left me completely.

When I returned to Chicago in the new year, I learned that Linda had disappeared. Like her daughter, she left a mystery behind her – a thoroughly lived-in house and no trace of a note. For a while, the papers were wild with speculation. Most made allusions to suicide. A few mentioned a long lost daughter, but more profiled her enigmatic lover – Jeremy Sallow. After a few weeks the mentions petered out and the matter was forgotten.

I graduated from Northwestern with honours and, after flitting from state to state on placements for a few years, managed to get a job in a family practice in New City in the South West of Chicago. After a few months I grew close to one of the receptionists – she happened to share my enthusiasm for major league baseball. After a few months of dating, we got married. Things went great until she said she wanted kids. I refused, and that was the end of that. I don't have anything particularly against children; I've just never wanted any of my own. For some reason, I don't reckon I could handle being a dad. Things at work were stilted and awkward until she handed in her notice and left for Oregon.

My second wife was very much like first in terms of her appearance – like her, she had blonde hair, tan skin and brown eyes. Just before the wedding, one of my colleagues drunkenly kidded me that I had a type. I smiled politely, but said nothing. It would have been difficult to explain that it wasn't that I had type, it was that there was a type of woman I actively sought to avoid.

I often reflected on Linda's words and came to appreciate that she had probably been right – I had imagined what I'd experienced in Sarah's wardrobe. It had all been part of a vague, sprawling fantasy; a fantasy I had used to escape from the knowledge my sister was probably dead. As the years passed, the anger I felt over my parents' dismissal lost much of its edge. I still hardly went near them, though a lot of that was down to shame. I didn't want to talk to them about Sarah, and since I knew they would bring her up – albeit through tears and tired recollections I'd heard hundreds of times - I made a point of keeping out of their way.

Part of my acceptance of the reality of what had happened to Sarah came when I sought out the police records on her disappearance. Jeremy, as I'd suspected, had been the main person of interest in the investigation. It turned out that all of the records he'd left at Linda's house, from the birth certificate to the passport, were forgeries. As clever and immaculately turned out as they were, they didn't alter the fact that the Metropolitan Police Force in London could find no evidence Jeremy Augustus Sallow had ever existed. There was a poster with a blurred photocopy of his face in the case-file. He was every bit as handsome as Linda had claimed, but that didn't stop me shuddering at the sight of him.

After my second divorce, I found myself longing for my sister again. In particular, I missed the stupid, innocent dreams of her I'd lost when I was a child. I found myself thinking about her when I was with patients, offering consultations and punching out prescriptions at a rate of ten minutes a time.

I tried various methods of connecting with her. I went to a medium but the woman – for all her dramatic eye-shadow and elaborate tassels – could detect no trace of her. I tried to record what I knew about her life in a notebook, but barely managed two pages before running out of things to say. I read all manner of trashy books on dreams in an attempt to find a means of resurrecting my old ability to craft nightly adventures for my sister, only for my nights remained as brief and joyless as they had been for years.

There was however one path I didn't take: I didn't return to her wardrobe. In fact, I didn't return home at all until my parents died. I only saw them because they came to me.

When I did go back, I learned the truth.

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_Many thanks for all of your reviews, favourites and follows - I really value your opinions and your encouragement spurred me on to get this chapter ready more quickly._

_Many thanks to the ever reliable **Nienna Telrunya** for the beta._


	4. Chapter Four

**VANISHING ACT**

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**Chapter Four**

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I was deep into middle-age and years past my second divorce when my mother died, leaving my childhood home empty. When I returned to the house after the funeral, I was shocked by how fresh it seemed. Nothing about the place indicated two people had died there in the last three months. It was all exactly as I remembered it, from the rigid position of the doormat to the tacky, artificial lilies in the vase by the stairs. It even smelled clean. When I sniffed, I could detect the whiff of polish in the air.

As I moved further into the hall, I found that everyone looked immaculate. Though my mother had been bed bound for the weeks leading up to her death, the appearance of the house gave the impression she'd died clutching a duster and a bottle of cleaning solution. Everything gleamed, from the tiles of the kitchen floor to the glass coffee table in the lounge. I almost expected to see my parents sitting stiffly on the sofa, staring at the TV screen and stringently avoiding eye contact.

After checking that the rooms downstairs were in good order, I walked upstairs to check the rooms there. I went through them one by one, and found them all spotless. The bed in my parents' room looked freshly made; the bathroom reeked of anti-septic; my old room had the gutted look of your standard guest bedroom.

I hesitated before opening the last door, the door to Sarah's room. I hadn't entered it since I was seven. The reality of my sister's disappearance – of the mysterious man who had vanished along with her, her vain, cold-hearted mother – made my childhood imaginings of cackling monsters and phantom sobs embarrassing in their naivety. I could accept that such things had frightened me as a child, certainly, but as a grown man? I would have to be a fool. I told myself I'd experienced an unlikely combination of real sounds and real sights – rats scrabbling about amongst the rafters, wind trapped in the walls, a dark, cavernous shadow. Even Linda's derision couldn't match up to my own. Turning the key set in the lock, I opened the door and walked inside.

Though the rest of the house had seemed vaguely weird in its perfection, the strangeness of Sarah's room was unmistakable. It didn't simply look well kept, it looked lived in. The window was half-open, inviting waves of cool, summer evening air. I could smell flowers. The duvet was turned over, the sheet covering the mattress riddled with veiny creases. I walked further into the room, marveling at it. Every detail of the room exuded life. Toys – a rag-doll, teddies, stuffed-animals – had been arranged on Sarah's bed in a ring, as if they were being used in a game.

My initial sense of amazement was quickly replaced by anger. I was baffled by how someone could have gotten into the house to play such a disturbing trick. The only person with a key to the house had been my parents' solicitor, who had the appearance and general demeanour of a corpse.

I was about to leave and call the solicitor's office to demand an explanation when I noticed the source of the sweet smell in the room: flowers were scattered over Sarah's dresser. They were fresh, and had probably been picked earlier in the day. I approached them with a lump in my throat. It was just too bizarre. The solicitor had given me the keys to the house days before, when I first returned; no one had been in the house since. I approached the dresser cautiously, reaching out to touch one of the flowers. The petals were soft, tactile.

Recalling the decayed flowers that I'd seen as a child in the top drawer of the dresser, I yanked the top one out. There were more flowers inside: daisies, bluebells, chicory. They rested above Sarah's possessions – make-up, the odd novel, a few china ornaments – all of which appeared as fresh and vibrant as the flowers. There wasn't a speck of dust in sight. I left the drawer open as I moved away, gradually turning to look at Sarah's wardrobe.

Though I was fifty-six, the sight of it made me feel like a little boy again. I had to fight an urge to shrink back from the thing, as I had hidden behind my father as a child. The other aspects of the room – the perfumed air, the unmade bed – heightened my dread. I don't know why I didn't run from the room then, but something compelled me to stay, walk forward, and open the wardrobe.

Sarah's clothes were still stored inside, clean and sweet smelling. When I pushed them aside to look at the back of the wardrobe, I found they were still soft. I gripped the clothes as I stared at the back of the wardrobe. It was whole. That, I think, was the biggest surprise of all. The strange and illogical had almost become expected – I had anticipated a hideous gash in the wood but instead there was nothing. Though the rest of the room had sunk into strangeness, the wardrobe was entirely normal.

In that moment, I realized what my father had seen on the day my nightmares had started: - a perfectly ordinary wardrobe and a confused, hysterical child. Though many elements of the room were odd – the flowers, the scattered toys, the open window – none of them were truly supernatural. Looking back, I knew I'd made a terrible mistake. I had imagined the hole in the wardrobe, the gleaming animal eyes and my sister's sobs. My father had known all that, tried to comfort me, be kind to me. The truth was that I had scorned my parents over a delusion.

Something about the quality of the air struck me, catching in my throat. A woozy sensation overtook me and I staggered away from the wardrobe. Feeling thick-headed I moved towards the bed, sitting down in an attempt to collect myself. Sitting helped resolve the dizziness, but did nothing to combat the regular, thudding pain that had developed in my head. I lay back, lifting my legs onto the bed. I had to bend them sharply because the bed was too small to take me. With my body cramped up and balanced perilously amidst a tangle of stuffed toys and sheets, I felt faintly ridiculous. Nonetheless I closed my eyes and willed the pain to stop, only for it to intensify. Worse, I could hear laughter coming from the wardrobe.

Sleep was setting in, as well as a vague, cauterized terror that swelled with the laughter. The laughter seemed to split somehow, coming from different parts of the room and rising steadily in pitch and volume. I feared I knew what the pain in my head was a symptom of – the onset of madness, the return of my delusions. Consciousness started to leave me yet an intense prickling sensation ran through the length and breadth of my body, as if I were being pricked by dozens of tiny claws. The sensation bled into my nightmares.

When I opened them again I was no longer in my sister's room. That struck me immediately, for I woke on stone rather than sheets. My whole body felt stiff, as if I'd been wedged in the same spot for hours. The air was stale and thick with dust. From the moment I became conscious, I had no doubt that everything I was experiencing was real.

Though the ache in my neck was considerable, I lifted my head to take stock of my surroundings. The entire room was formed of rough stones, most of them covered with dirt and strewn with straw and broken feathers. It had a high ceiling which was split into jagged shapes by a network of cracks. I was caught up in a pit in the floor which was just large enough to take the full length of my body. Summoning what little strength I had left, I sat up to take a better look. Besides the filth, the room was empty except for a wide throne formed of bones. Sarah was sat on the edge of the throne, staring ahead. I immediately noticed her eyes were a solid, impenetrable black. With the light and color of her eyes gone, she didn't quite look like my sister anymore. I only knew it was her by her beatific smile, the staple of her photos.

If I had been in a rational state of mind (and not, of course, dismissed the whole encounter as a nightmare), I might have wondered why she still appeared to be seventeen. As I was not, I simply stared. Her body was rigid and she did not react to the sight of me. She was wearing the tatters of a golden dress; the fabric was ripped and filthy, displaying wide slices of her stomach and thighs. She smiled slightly and her face, though streaked with dirt, glowed with health.

Spurred on by the sight of her, I got to my feet and approached the throne. I climbed the steps that led up to her, stopping as soon as I was within touching distance. "Sarah?" I called out, hoping for some alteration in her expression. There was no change; she continued to stare and smile.

Her arm rested limply on the thick curling bone that served as the back of the throne, and I grabbed her hand. I flinched at how cold she felt, but didn't let go. "It's your brother, Sarah – Toby," I felt oddly moved by how small she seemed to me as a grown man – my hard, weathered hand looked clumsy when set around hers.

I squeezed her fingers, hoping to animate them with force. The pressure made her eyelids drop to a close. She muttered my name, "Toby?" I couldn't help but think how _changed _she sounded from when she had called out to me when I was seven. She had been shocked and alert then. Now, she merely sounded distant.

"Yes, it's me – your brother."

"Your skin feels rough." Her smile levelled out, becoming a frown.

"I'm old now. Middle aged."

"That's strange. I don't like thinking about that – it's kind of sad. You were very young when I last saw you, weren't you?"

"I was three."

"I didn't want to go. You know that, don't you?" Her voice was strained; it seemed odd since her pose hadn't altered and her lips hardly moved at all.

Before I could answer, I heard a distinct scuttling noise and a solitary laugh. It sounded as if claws were cracking against the stone floor. I whipped my head away from my sister, but saw nothing. "Did you hear that?" I asked, looking back at her.

But Sarah didn't answer. If anything, she looked more rigid than before. I reached for her hand, but it was clamped around the bone of the chair. I tried to pry it free, but it wouldn't move. "Sarah!" I called out, my nails digging into her fingers as I tried to free them.

"She can't hear you. Neither will she move - I would prefer if you did not attempt to make her." I turned. The speaker was dressed in black, his clothes so dark they blended into one another seamlessly. Though I was too shocked to register it at the time, he had features in common with Jeremy – blond hair, a thin, elegant face and slanting, cat-like eyes. Though they were similar, I must stress this – they were not the same. I've never quite been able to work out the connection.

"Who are you?" I asked, alarmed by the violent thudding of my heart. "What have you done to her?"

A ripple of laughter swept through the perimeter of the room, the originators of the sound invisible in the shadows. The man smiled, and I hated him for it.

"I will not be making you privy to that information. You don't look like the sort of man to be familiar with lore, but if you were you would know that names hold power. My name especially. Believe me; my name is the last thing Sarah would want you to be exposed to."

"This is real, isn't it? This is where Sarah has been all this time."

"Of course it's real. You have touched your sister, haven't you? She is as solid as anyone in your world. There would be no joy for me in possessing a ghost."

"I heard my sister, then; she's been trapped here all this time." I spoke more to myself than the man. My breathing was strained. I was shocked by the realization Sarah had been imprisoned in some impossible palace of stone for decades. I was terrified by the thought she was being held under some terrible thrall that kept her cold and stiff. I despaired at the knowledge that I had no idea how to save her.

"You heard her reaching out to you. She is attached to her family - you, her mother."

I moved closer to him, Sarah almost forgotten as I focused on the man who had taken her away. He had an aura of strangeness so powerful that I felt thick-headed when I got too close to him. The sensation was familiar from when Sarah had called out to me when I was seven, from when I'd had a vision of her at her mother's house. I realized what it was in a moment of astonishing clarity: the taint of another world. Whatever he was, this man was clearly not human.

Fighting the dizziness, I scrutinized him. He was hard to read, neither a prince nor a monster. He certainly wasn't the kind of captor I'd envisaged as a child – a cackling sorcerer with a staff and a stiff, villainous beard. No, he looked appealing in the manner of an exotic creature contained in a glass case at a zoo – though he appeared attractive and his smile was inviting, I instinctively knew he was to be feared, avoided.

"This is too much," I said, shamefully close to tears, "None of this makes any sense."

"It won't and it never will. I can only apologize for your being here. Though she may not appear it, Sarah is powerful in some ways. She misses you, and summoned you accordingly. I will return you now, if you like."

He raised his arm in a strange gesture, his eyes flaring. I shouted, "No! I have questions. You have to answer my questions."

His lips twisted in annoyance. He sneered at me naturally, as if it was his default expression. "You may have three questions, and I am being generous with that – I owe you nothing."

"You owe me my sister. I thought she was dead. I've spent my whole life thinking I was hearing a ghost, going mad even. You've ruined everything: her life, my parents' lives, my life-"

"Have I really?" His voice was thin yet ripe with spite. "Then it is your fault for allowing loss to crush you. You have pined for something that is lost to you forever. This is your sister's home now; it has been for over fifty years."

I closed my eyes and took deep breaths. It was hard, but I managed not to shout again. "Why?"

"Why what?"

I opened my eyes to glare. "Why did you take her?"

"I had the best of motives - love. If you could recall a single myth or fairy-tale from your youth, you would know that dark lords generally kidnap maidens out of desire. If you cannot understand that, it is the fault of your mother for not reading you enough stories."

"You don't trap someone you love. I heard Sarah crying – she just told me she didn't want to leave me."

"It is natural to be homesick, to miss one's family," I was repelled by how sincere he sounded. It wasn't a casual falsehood, no, he actually believed what he was saying. "She is, after all, a long way from home. You shouldn't call me cruel for taking her from there; everyone has to leave their family someday. Besides, you ignore how generous I have been. I have allowed her to keep her connection with you; I have given her every imaginable gift; I have even given her her mother. She has everything she has asked for that it has been in my power to obtain."

I had to bite my tongue not to ask about Linda. As much as I wanted to learn what had happened to her, I wanted to learn what had happened to Sarah more.

"How did you bring her here?"

"Simple – I took her. I offered her gifts, and she accepted them. In doing so, she indebted herself to me." He turned to look at Sarah and I followed suit. I started when I saw her - she was glowing, glowing so brilliantly it was almost unbearable to look at her. The scraps of her dress were knitting themselves together, the light healing the tears in the fabric. By the time the glow receded, the dress was whole again - a golden gown that shimmered when she moved. She smiled as she had when I had first looked at her, rising carefully from the throne and descending the steps to join us. She would have looked like an idyllic princess from a storybook if her eyes hadn't been the same solid black as before. "Isn't she beautiful?" The man reached out for her hand, squeezing her fingers tightly when she offered it to him. "I gave her this dress, and she chose to wear it."

"But she didn't know what would happen when she put it on."

"No, but that's quite beside the point. I believe we've reached your final question. " There was a hard edge to his voice – his patience was running thin.

I panicked then, as I knew that I'd be sent away as soon as my final question was answered. Though I had no clue where I was, I was aware I was in another world. If I were in a normal place, Sarah's dress wouldn't have repaired itself; her eyes wouldn't have been black. Once I was sent away, I would have no sure means of getting back again.

I shut my eyes and breathed slowly. It was too much to look at Sarah and think at the same time. "What – exactly – have you done to Sarah?"

"Surely the sight of her speaks for itself. Look at her." It was hard to resist, but I did not open my eyes at his instruction. "She is well and healthy. I have shown her nothing but kindness."

"Her dress was in pieces," I kept my voice hard, set on answers.

"The fault of my servants. They can be most affectionate, but tend to forget how sharp their claws are."

As soon as he finished, Sarah spoke. Her voice wasn't the quiet whisper it had been, no, it was shrill, urgent even. I opened my eyes only to find her smiling sweetly. The man continued to clutch her fingers and look at me steadily, oblivious to the fact she was speaking. "He's lying. My dress was torn when I ran – torn by hedges, branches, his fingers when he caught me."

I felt unnerved by the way she spoke without speaking, but knew I had to continue. I had to maintain the dialog to keep him from sending me away. "Her face was filthy."

"She likes to explore. I tell her to desist, but she pays no attention – she is nothing if not defiant."

Sarah spoke again, voice high with indignation. "He's lying. My face is dirty from the times I have tried to escape. I have suffered every imaginable indignity in my attempts to leave this place. I have squeezed through tunnels, pressed myself into hedges and ran until I dropped down into the mud from exhaustion."

"Her eyes are black."

"A symptom of her journey here. She came a long way – such a journey does not leave one unscarred. Indeed, there is always a physical change, though the nature of it is unpredictable. Still, I find there is a certain loveliness to them. Don't you agree?"

Sarah spoke once more, furious now. "He's lying. He left my eyes to begin with. He only made them black because he couldn't bear the sorrow in them. When he took my eyes he took my fight, leaving me calm, suppliant. The only part of me he has not destroyed is my mind. He cannot change it – it is the one part of me that remains true."

I went quiet. I had to swallow to calm my nerves. "You haven't told me the truth, have you?"

He said nothing, merely scowling. I saw his eyes dart to Sarah, and I think he might have muttered a few words while he was looking at her. Though free to twist the truth surrounding my sister, he seemed powerless to lie outright.

"Give me back my sister. She hates you – she hates this place. You have no right to keep her here."

"Maybe according to your laws. My laws are different; they are formed around my desires. As long as she remains here, she will always be mine." He turned to gaze at my sister and the look he gave her made my blood run cold. There was a softness in his eyes that sat uneasily amidst the rest of his features. He extended a hand to touch her face.

"Stop that!" I yelled, but my rage had no bite to it. As much of the idea of his showing affection to my sister repelled me, there was something so tender about the gesture that I struggled to object. The part of Sarah that had spoken to me before – the rage, the pain – had fallen silent. The Sarah he was touching had closed her eyes, a smile stretching across her face. With her eyes closed, she was easier to recognize. She was a simply a smiling young woman with black hair and a divine face. The gold of her dress seemed even more blinding than before in that moment, scorching me with its brilliance.

"I have already told you that I love her. Why are you surprised?" He spoke calmly, stroking her cheek with his long, bone-white fingers. "You must see how content she is – how lovely. How young. You are old now. If you were to take her back with you, how would you explain her? Would she be your daughter? Your niece? Even if you could lie to others, you would not be able to lie to yourself. She has no place with you."

Though I hated myself for it, I knew he was right. Maybe things would have turned out differently if I had found her as a child. At seven, I could have perhaps pulled her through the wardrobe to safety if I'd been brave, ignored the eyes and reached in far enough. As it was, I was about fifty years too late.

"You have had your questions. Though I may have been selective with the truths I offered you, you have not been deceived. Now, it is time for you to say goodbye."

"Please, just allow me one more question. If you give me that, I'll leave without another word. I'll never return. I'll never go back to my parents house – I'll have the building knocked down, the room destroyed. Without that, there will be no way back for me. That's right, isn't it?"

"Yes," he conceded, a smile on his lips, "If the house is destroyed, there will be no way for you to return. I will accept your terms as long as you can swear to them."

"I swear."

"Perfect. Go ahead, ask your question."

"Did she ever ask for me?"

"She asked many times," he answered eventually, speaking carefully, "But I never took you, of course."

"You brought Linda here, but not me. Why?" I couldn't help but wonder at the injustice of it. I wasn't really aware that I was asking another question – in retrospect, I'm surprised it was answered.

"Linda was unwanted – her career was fading, her family gone. You, on the other hand, have been a son, a husband, a man of purpose for your entire life. You must understand that I can only take those who have drifted to the margins of society – the aimless, the forgotten."

"You took Sarah; she was anything but unwanted."

"You misapply my logic. There are different kinds of magic – the magic that allowed me to take Linda is different from that which allowed me to take Sarah. There will be no more questions now – you will say goodbye and leave." His voice was taut, and Sarah's fingers had gone crooked from the intensity of his grip.

I couldn't bear it. For all his talk of love and gifts, he was cruel. He had eroded her life – her future was a blank, her past a muddied blur. Though I knew I was bound to fail, I had to make an attempt to save her. My promise forgotten, I reached out to grab Sarah by the wrist and tried to yank her hand free. I stared at her terrible, vacant expression as I pulled, despairing when it didn't change. There was no flicker of life, no trace of consciousness. I squeezed harder, and started to shout, "Wake-up, please. You have to-"

Before I could finish, my body was wrenched backwards by some invisible force, my back slamming against stone.

Darkness was above me, wiping out every feature of the room. When I finally made out the man, only his pale face was visible. His eyes glowed in the darkness, blazing with power. "Since you broke your promise, it seems I will have to keep it for you." With that, the darkness became total. Laughter resounded in my ears; my failure stung even as I slept.

When I woke up, I started to cough instantly. The room – Sarah's room – was filled with black smoke. When I got to my feet and staggered to the door, I saw flames licking the door to my parents' bedroom across the hall.

Though it was a struggle to breathe, I made it to the stairs. I could just about reach them without succumbing to the wall of heat that barred me from the rest of the corridor. Dripping with sweat, I half ran, half stumbled down the stairs. My back felt the full force of the heat, throbbing from it. I fell upon the front door and staggered out. As soon as I was on the blessedly cold, ice-crusted lawn, I dropped down in a dead faint. It was a different kind of unconsciousness from before – calmer, more restful.

I came to in a hospital. My whole body was sore, and when the doctor came over to speak with me he told me every inch of my back was bruised. "You had a hard fall. Can you remember what happened?"

I lied of course, telling him I did not. The bruises were thus dismissed as being tangentially connected to the fire. When I reflected upon the situation later, I found it appropriate that the bruises were explained away so easily. Everything strange and supernatural I had ever experienced had been made to submit to logic; over the years my parents, Linda and my doctor had all dismissed me in turn.

Before the doctor left I asked him what had happened to my parents' house. He didn't know, so I rang their solicitor as soon as I had the opportunity. The man's astonishing dullness proved to be a credit to him, having something of a cathartic effect on my nerves. His voice was a passionless monotone that managed to suck every trace of jeopardy from the situation, and that was exactly what I needed. "Much of the upper floor was lost. Everything that was not destroyed by the fire was soaked by the efforts of the state fire service."

"Was anything saved?" I asked, though I couldn't think of anything in particular that I wanted. I had lost all attachment to my old room, my sister's photos. My memories (I still consider them visions in certain moods, though no less real for the distinction) were far more tangible.

"I'm afraid it is not my job to know that, Mr Williams. I'll put you in touch with the insurers – that's what they look after."

It quickly emerged that very little in the way of tangible belongings had been salvaged. Everything that had been pulled from the rubble reeked of smoke and damp - a weird combination of smells if there ever was one. Most of the objects that had been retrieved were distantly familiar – a favorite ornament of my mother's with its extremities missing, a rippling print of a ballerina in a cracked frame, a small pile of sodden books that I recognized as my father's. When I dug through them, I found one book that was different from the rest. It was small and bound in stiff, flaking velvet. I had never seen it before. When I flicked through the pages that weren't massed together, I realized it was a play. The title on the cover had been worn away by the water, but was still legible inside. It consisted of a single word-

_Labyrinth_

Though I had no idea why, that book gave me hope.

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_Don't hate me, but this is the final chapter of _Vanishing Act_ - thank-you very much for all your reviews, favourites and follows. I've really enjoyed hearing your thoughts and am glad you've found the mystery intriguing. I don't plan a sequel to this, but you can expect other (unrelated) stories from me soon - add me to your author alert to be notified of any new stories._

_Many thanks to the ever reliable **Nienna Telrunya** for the beta._


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